Lara Gillespie (UAE Development Team) has taken the first UCI-ranked victory of her career, and the race leader's jersey, at Giro Mediterraneo Rosa (2.2) in Italy.
The 22-year-old now has a fantastic chance to win the race overall, with three stages remaining, if she can recover from her epic effort on today's second stage. Her win today came 24 hours after she was narrowly beaten for stage 1 victory.
The Irish road race champion finished solo more than three minutes ahead of her nearest rival after attacking with almost 80km to go in the 103.6km stage from Montefalcione to Torre del Greco.
"It's not my speciality," Gillespie said riding solo today for so long. "But it was fun to try it for the first time, I actually really enjoyed it. And it was a big surprise, as the sprinter, to do it.
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"I expected nothing. The breakaway happen on the downhill. I followed a girl and I looked back and they was nobody with us.
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"So it was completely… not the plan, but it worked out OK. I'm really happy for the team, everyone is super strong and we have great energy here."
Gillespie's team mate, Italian 19-year-old Federica Venturelli, was 2nd at 3:18 with stage 1 winner, and today's race leader, Giada Borghesi (BTC City Ljubljana Zhiraf Ambedo), placed 3rd at 3:36.
Irish riders Fiona Mangan (Cynisca Cycling) and Amelia Tyler (Alba Development Road Team) were 26th and 45th today. They were both in the main field - which was sprinting for 13th place - at 5:41.
More to come.
